This is an interesting strip and addresses the issue raised by many readers about how much an AI, who, theoretically, can change chassis at a drop of a hat, could consider any body 'theirs'. It appears that it is psychosomatic, to a certain extent. If a synthetic regards a certain chassis as 'their body' as opposed to a shell in which they move around, then they have stronger reactions to its sensory input and have a genuine feeling that 'this is me'. This also greatly increases the degree to which their subconscious processes elaborate on sensory input, explaining how Roko's feet are hyper-sensitive and Bubbles has such a strong reaction to Faye touching her in various locations which, for a lack of a better term, we must consider 'erogenous zones'.

FWIW, I suspect that May is a good example of a non-integrated AI. Chassis failures on a scale that Roko would find traumatic to a disabling degree are just annoyances and inconveniences to her.

I assume that this phenomenon is recognised by The Powers That Be and strong laws exist in removing 'integrated' AIs from their chassis unless there is an overwhelming public safety argument.

This is an interesting strip and addresses the issue raised by many readers about how much an AI, who, theoretically, can change chassis at a drop of a hat, could consider any body 'theirs'. It appears that it is psychosomatic, to a certain extent. If a synthetic regards a certain chassis as 'their body' as opposed to a shell in which they move around, then they have stronger reactions to its sensory input and have a genuine feeling that 'this is me'. This also greatly increases the degree to which their subconscious processes elaborate on sensory input, explaining how Roko's feet are hyper-sensitive and Bubbles has such a strong reaction to Faye touching her in various locations which, for a lack of a better term, we must consider 'erogenous zones'.

FWIW, I suspect that May is a good example of a non-integrated AI. Chassis failures on a scale that Roko would find traumatic to a disabling degree are just annoyances and inconveniences to her.

I assume that this phenomenon is recognised by The Powers That Be and strong laws exist in removing 'integrated' AIs from their chassis unless there is an overwhelming public safety argument.

All of which could be another reasoning in the 'why did the military let Bubbles keep her chassis when she was discharged' discussion. Faye seems to be implying her that she has a high degree of integration with this body. So those robo-psychologists Bubbles mentioned way back in the day might have recognized this and recommended that she be allowed to keep that chassis for the sake of her mental stability.

Jeph is on vacation in France. The posting time is now linked to when he wakes up, which is about 8-10 hours later than it is when he's back home in Halifax.

The Math with geography plus universal standard time does not add up.Newfoundland UTC−03:30France UTC+01:00So normally their day starts earlier by 4.5 hours. Has Jeph changed his day/night cycle while in France?

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A good pun is it's own reword.There is a difference between spare parts, extra parts and left over parts.

The Venn diagram for Common Sense and Good Sense has very little, if any, overlap.

Jeph is on vacation in France. The posting time is now linked to when he wakes up, which is about 8-10 hours later than it is when he's back home in Halifax.

The Math with geography plus universal standard time does not add up.Newfoundland UTC−03:30France UTC+01:00So normally their day starts earlier by 4.5 hours. Has Jeph changed his day/night cycle while in France?

I think wat @BenRG meant is that normally JJ posts somewhere in the early evening (let's say 7 PM), but that, while in France, he posts when he wakes up there (let's say 8 AM). While the time difference is only 4.5 hours, the shift from evening to morning posting means the posts themselves appear about 8.5 hour later withmy example here (13 hours later posted for JJ - 4.5 hour time difference = 8.5 hours later posted for us).

... May is a good example of a non-integrated AI. Chassis failures on a scale that Roko would find traumatic to a disabling degree are just annoyances and inconveniences to her ...

Poor May's history has not included a chassis to become familiar with? We do not know anything prior to RobotJail, but there was not enough attachment then to get in the way of her desires for a jet. And since, that Piece'O'Cr*p the system gave her at discharge has nothing to encourage her thinking of it as "me".

This is an interesting strip and addresses the issue raised by many readers about how much an AI, who, theoretically, can change chassis at a drop of a hat, could consider any body 'theirs'. It appears that it is psychosomatic, to a certain extent. If a synthetic regards a certain chassis as 'their body' as opposed to a shell in which they move around, then they have stronger reactions to its sensory input and have a genuine feeling that 'this is me'. This also greatly increases the degree to which their subconscious processes elaborate on sensory input, explaining how Roko's feet are hyper-sensitive and Bubbles has such a strong reaction to Faye touching her in various locations which, for a lack of a better term, we must consider 'erogenous zones'.

FWIW, I suspect that May is a good example of a non-integrated AI. Chassis failures on a scale that Roko would find traumatic to a disabling degree are just annoyances and inconveniences to her.

I assume that this phenomenon is recognized by The Powers That Be and strong laws exist in removing 'integrated' AIs from their chassis unless there is an overwhelming public safety argument.

I wonder if tomorrow Faye will ask Bubbles why exactly the military let her keep such a high-tech chassis?

Well, AI to AI is more direct... Pintsize earlier on commented about dating other anthroPCs and their activities seemed mostly digital. When Jeremy and Seven got together they burned out several USB cables apparently. AI and Human physical intimacy seems to be more along the lines of what humans get up to together. Comments about Faye and Bubbles breaking their bed the first night they were together. And I believe that both May and Momo talked about extra add on devices for.... human-style gratification.

He used to report/complain about "sleep madness" quite frequently back in the day - I don't think Jetlag & stress/disruption are doing anything for the stability of his circadian rhythm.

(Mild stressors like e.g. travelling to a conference are enough to discombobulate my inner timekeeper for a few days.)

« Last Edit: 18 Dec 2018, 01:06 by Case »

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"Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter" - Rosa Luxemburg"The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you donít know you're a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. People miss that." - David Dunning

Poor Roko really isn't good with exposed anatomy, robotic or biological, is she? I think that this is the second time we've seen her crash due to psychological stress, poor girl!

I know this is over-analysing but The Bovine Collider's misadventure makes me furrow my brow in thought. I mean, any cow is a large, solid object and one with a lot of tensile strength. In order to literally explode a cow in the way she evidently did, she must have hit it with the force of a tractor-trailer going at a considerable rate of speed. Given her size and assuming she isn't built from depleted uranium, she must have been running at well over a hundred miles an hour to deliver that sort of energy. What was she doing?!?

So, what does everyone think? Is Roko just hanging out with Faye and Bubbles because she doesn't have anything better to do or is Jeph working us towards her getting a job at Union Robotics, maybe running the 'phones and appointment book or something?

FWIW, I suspect that May is a good example of a non-integrated AI. Chassis failures on a scale that Roko would find traumatic to a disabling degree are just annoyances and inconveniences to her.

May also may just not WANT to be in that body. At all. So it, in turn, kinda falls apart due to poor care.

I don't think so. May's parole office was pretty clear that she was stuck with that chassis, and that he could do nothing about it. He also seemed to have seen this kind of problem before.

It sounds like chassis for AIs coming out of robot jail are less that acceptable rejects or leftovers.

They're likely used and purchased in bulk by the State. Hence May's being out of warranty despite her being in it for less than a year. The parole officer specified that HE wasn't authorized to pay for repair or replacement.

Poor Roko really isn't good with exposed anatomy, robotic or biological, is she? I think that this is the second time we've seen her crash due to psychological stress, poor girl!

I know this is over-analysing but The Bovine Collider's misadventure makes me furrow my brow in thought. I mean, any cow is a large, solid object and one with a lot of tensile strength. In order to literally explode a cow in the way she evidently did, she must have hit it with the force of a tractor-trailer going at a considerable rate of speed. Given her size and assuming she isn't built from depleted uranium, she must have been running at well over a hundred miles an hour to deliver that sort of energy. What was she doing?!?

So, what does everyone think? Is Roko just hanging out with Faye and Bubbles because she doesn't have anything better to do or is Jeph working us towards her getting a job at Union Robotics, maybe running the 'phones and appointment book or something?

Roko seems to handle the sight of gore better than damaged robotics. She wouldíve been great at crime scenes.

I'm wondering how a blood & gore splattered AI managed to saunter through the city without someone calling the police, SWAT and/or the national guard on her ...

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"Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter" - Rosa Luxemburg"The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you donít know you're a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. People miss that." - David Dunning

I know this is over-analysing but The Bovine Collider's misadventure makes me furrow my brow in thought. I mean, any cow is a large, solid object and one with a lot of tensile strength. In order to literally explode a cow in the way she evidently did, she must have hit it with the force of a tractor-trailer going at a considerable rate of speed. Given her size and assuming she isn't built from depleted uranium, she must have been running at well over a hundred miles an hour to deliver that sort of energy. What was she doing?!?

Riding a motorbike at well over a hundred miles an hour?

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"Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter" - Rosa Luxemburg"The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you donít know you're a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. People miss that." - David Dunning

We know that AIs have libidos. ( an emergent phenomenon - not designed in ) So how are they able to satisfy their um, urges?

It appears that this depends on the sophistication of their chassis. Ranging from Bubbles to Roko to May. then there is pint-size i'll stop now

It was kinda implied by JJ in #1658 that the libido was deliberately implemented. At least, that's how I interpret "No one is quite sure who decided it would be useful for artificial intelligences to possess libidos". Does not sound like it was an emergent phenom, but maybe a later comic backtracked on that statement a bit?

It was kinda implied by JJ in #1658 that the libido was deliberately implemented. At least, that's how I interpret "No one is quite sure who decided it would be useful for artificial intelligences to possess libidos". Does not sound like it was an emergent phenom, but maybe a later comic backtracked on that statement a bit?

That statement could mean that experts were trying to work out who originated the 'libido' subroutine because they hadn't yet realised it was something that the AIs had decided for themselves. Was that the discovery that led them to admit that The Singularity had happened?

Well, they could've had more customers out-of-comic, but even so I hardly believe them both not being able to keep track of the customers they have and what parts they have/will have for them.

I kinda assumed this arm was simply part of the leftover inventory from the robot fighting ring, but that they never were able to identify who this arm once belonged too (which could have dark implications about what happened to the arm's owner....but who knows what Corpsewitch was capable off anyway).

Yes, perhaps the cow had suffered some other sort of trauma as a result of the "bump". Maybe startled the cow, who ran out into the road and got hit by a truck.

I also know that an expired cow sort of... inflates after a while. And a bump can lead to bystanders who look like this. But there are no stink lines and Faye isn't passing out from the stench (although even fresh cow guts smell pretty obnoxious), so that's probably not it.

And yeah, we're really, really overthinking this.

I mean, that's what we do here. We overthink.

I've sort of wondered how Roko can work as a cop when she faints at the sight of mechanical mayhem. A cop that passes out or starts puking at the sight of blood wouldn't last too long, so in a world with lots of AIs walking around and presumably getting into accidents and shenanigans, an AI cop who bluescreens at mangled synthetic body parts wouldn't be very useful.

Personally, I'm a giant fan of these world-building AI comics, spiced up with the occasional turbo-horndog Faye. Bubbles has created a monster...

As much as I love the paperclip joke, it does make me wonder about the context it would hold for AI

From an IT perspective, it would be something akin to smelling salts or a blow upside the head, you snap out of whatever infinite loop you're in but it's jarring, and you maybe don't remember a lot about what you were stuck on in the first place.

Would that kind of joke be offensive to the sort of highly-integrated AI that Roko represents? Would it be seen as more therapeutic/refreshing than I'm thinking? Is it highly taboo or viewed with a utilitarian lens?

This, of course, assumes that there is an actual "reset button" or equivalent for AI. It is about as likely that this is Faye being flippant and making a "Robots are still computers, just bigger and prone to emotions" joke.

I suspect, as with most things, it depends on your audience. Bubbles certainly didn't seem too fazed.

Poor Roko really isn't good with exposed anatomy, robotic or biological, is she? I think that this is the second time we've seen her crash due to psychological stress, poor girl!

I know this is over-analysing but The Bovine Collider's misadventure makes me furrow my brow in thought. I mean, any cow is a large, solid object and one with a lot of tensile strength. In order to literally explode a cow in the way she evidently did, she must have hit it with the force of a tractor-trailer going at a considerable rate of speed. Given her size and assuming she isn't built from depleted uranium, she must have been running at well over a hundred miles an hour to deliver that sort of energy. What was she doing?!?

So, what does everyone think? Is Roko just hanging out with Faye and Bubbles because she doesn't have anything better to do or is Jeph working us towards her getting a job at Union Robotics, maybe running the 'phones and appointment book or something?

Running late for work?

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Quote

and the universe said you are not alone and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing